Captive Of The Labyrinth

Captive of the Labyrinth is reissued here to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of rifle heiress Sarah L. Winchester in 1922. After inheriting a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in 1881, Winchester purchased a simple farmhouse in San José, California. She built additions to the house and continued construction for the next twenty years. When neighbors and the local press could not imagine her motivations, they invented fanciful ones of their own. She was accused of being a ghost-obsessed spiritualist, and to this day it is largely believed that the extensive construction she executed on her San José house was done to thwart death and appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle. Author and historian Mary Jo Ignoffo’s definitive biography unearths the truth about this reclusive eccentric, revealing that she was not a maddened spiritualist driven by remorse but an intelligent, articulate woman who sought to protect her private life amidst the chaos of her public existence and the social mores of the time. The author takes readers through Winchester’s several homes, explores her private life, and, by excerpting from personal correspondence, one learns the widow’s true priority was not dissipating her fortune on the mansion in San José but endowing a hospital to eradicate a dread disease. Sarah Winchester has been exploited for profit for over a century, but Captive of the Labyrinth finally puts to rest the myths about this American heiress, and, in the process, uncovers her true legacies.

Sarah Winchester was a brilliant, creative and generous woman. She lost her only child, Annie, at six weeks old. Her beloved husband William, heir to the Winchester Rifle fortune, died at a young age from tuberculosis. Sarah never recovered from her two heartbreaking losses. Yet through all her pain she was focused on helping those in need.Sarah spent major parts of her adult life on two building projects. Both of them live on today, 97 years after her death.In San Jose, California, Sarah built an architectural marvel, a mansion in the American Queen Anne revival style reflecting great beauty and great innovation. The mansion has operated since 1923 as a tourist attraction known as the Winchester Mystery House. The house is a California Historical Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Throughout the years rumors have been associated with Sarah and her house. The rumors suggest that the grief-stricken widow sought comfort from a medium in Boston who told her she was being cursed by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle. She should move west, the medium said, and build a house and never stop building. As long as construction continued, she was told, she would not die. The rooms would shelter the good spirits and the sound of hammers would drive away the bad spirits. These rumors led to Sarah being portrayed as eccentric and crazy.In West Haven, Connecticut, Sarah funded the building and operation of a hospital for patients with tuberculosis. The hospital, honoring her husband, was named the William Wirt Winchester Annex for Tuberculosis. Sarah was especially concerned with helping those of limited economic means. Over the years thousands of lives have been saved through the work of this hospital. Although the hospital no longer exists, the fund Sarah created continues to support the Winchester Chest Clinic, now part of the Yale New Haven Hospital.Sarah's hospital remains virtually unknown, whereas Sarah's mansion is toured by a steady stream of visitors from around the world. The mansion was the setting for the 2018 film Winchester, a paranormal thriller starring Academy-Award-winning actress Helen Mirren. The movie was advertised as "inspired by true events." It is true that Sarah and the house both existed, but that is where the "true" events end. The rumors surrounding the house continue to be told. Historical research including newspaper and magazine articles, personal correspondence, and interviews with Sarah's contemporaries reveals an alternative explanation of Sarah Winchester and her mansion.

An American reporter's chilling account of being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill. Captive is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody—not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death. Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.

1884. Nathan Garlan hears and sees the dead. Using his uncanny aptitudes to assist society and its specters, he has become the most acclaimed medium in Boston. But not all esteem him. Nathan's own mother craves her boy butchered ... New Haven. Sarah Winchester is the heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune and a haunted woman. She has searched for release from familial phantoms for two decades, yet found no respite. However, she has heard of a medium in Boston who regularly administers miracles... Will Sarah Winchester find serenity through Nathan Garlan's services? Or will Hester Garlan find her son first?

In the Labyrinth of Drakes, the thrilling new book in the acclaimed fantasy series from Marie Brennan, the glamorous Lady Trent takes her adventurous explorations to the deserts of Akhia. Even those who take no interest in the field of dragon naturalism have heard of Lady Trent's expedition to the inhospitable deserts of Akhia. Her discoveries there are the stuff of romantic legend, catapulting her from scholarly obscurity to worldwide fame. The details of her personal life during that time are hardly less private, having provided fodder for gossips in several countries. As is so often the case in the career of this illustrious woman, the public story is far from complete. In this, the fourth volume of her memoirs, Lady Trent relates how she acquired her position with the Royal Scirling Army; how foreign saboteurs imperiled both her work and her well-being; and how her determined pursuit of knowledge took her into the deepest reaches of the Labyrinth of Drakes, where the chance action of a dragon set the stage for her greatest achievement yet. The Lady Trent Memoirs 1. A Natural History of Dragons 2. The Tropic of Serpents 3. Voyage of the Basilisk 4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes 5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

For centuries, California's environment has nurtured remarkable people. Ohlone Lope Inigo found a way to protect his family in troubled times on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Pioneer Juana Briones made a fortune from her rancho yet took the time to care for those in need. Innovator Thomas Foon Chew discovered a climate for success, in spite of the obstacles. Around the region that became Silicon Valley, filmmaker Charlie Chaplin found inspiration, poet Robert Louis Stevenson uncovered adventure and Sarah Winchester built a house that would intrigue people long after she was gone. Author Robin Chapman shares fascinating tales of those who exemplify the enterprising spirit of the Golden State.

On October 22, 1844, thousands of men, women and children, dressed in Ascension Robes, gather on a desolate, freezing hillside outside Boston to greet the end of the world. Among the crowd is terrified five-year-old, Sarah Pardee, for whom this is the beginning journey to extraordinary fame and notoriety. That night, Sarah is rescued by the cults founder, William Miller, and by Caty and Maggie Fox, who become her friends as they travel their own path to become Americas most distinguished spirit rappers interpreting rapping sounds in haunted houses. As for Sarah, she will go on to become Mrs. William Wirt Winchester, of Winchester rifle fame, one of the richest women in America. She will lose a daughter after only 42 days of life, an event that blights all her remaining days. Guided by an obsession with the spirit world, she will move to the San Jose, California and build one of Americas strangest and most famous structures. But first she will attendand completely disruptthe Charles Street School and then Mary Lyons Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (later Mount Holyoke College), she will meet Edwin Booth, Americas most famous Shakespearean actor, brother to John Wilkes Booth, who presides over a spiritualist meeting where Sarah first communicates with her deceased daughter. Thereafter she will be visited by a spirit guide who directs her building of the massive, controversial monument on the west coast. The Possession of Sarah Winchester tells this compelling story in her own words, revealing child/woman caught in the web of the rise of spiritualism in nineteenth century America. It portrays a brilliant womans mind inundated by repression, grief, and guilt over her familys creation of a weapon that destroyed Native American lives and culture.